Saturday, March 08, 2008

I've been having a battle with back pain for a week now. It flares up now and then - sometimes I can pinpoint a cause, but mostly it's a mystery. I like to think that it's just my body responding to all the untwisting and realigning I'm making it do. The muscles have been twisted into odd positions for so long that they're kind of comfortable there and they hate that I'm now forcing them to go back to where they ought to be. Whatever, it HURTS. :o(

So there was one missed training session last weekend, and one early this week that was a bit half-hearted, but other than that, I've soldiered on. Today I had a leg workout scheduled, and some running, and I was feeling a fair bit of trepidation about it all.

Normally I hate working out any time other than first thing in the morning, but today that just wasn't possible, due to client bookings. So by the time I got started, I'd done a fair bit of walking around and demonstrating various moves, plus a little light stretching and I was feeling nicely warmed up and a lot less creaky than I had been when I got up. I loaded up the bar for my deadlifts - going a bit light, just in case - and cranked out a couple of sets of bodyweight squats, just to make sure that everything was working as it should.

Then I squatted, really focused on my technique, grabbed the bar and lifted..... and hey, there was no pain. So I added more weight and got through the remaining sets, no problem at all. The rest of the session went without a hitch and I had no excuse to skip the 25 minutes of running I had to do (dammit!). By this time it was 12:30 and it was HOT in the gym. And I was wearing long pants - it was cool when I headed out for my first client session at 7:30 and I meant to pack a pair of shorts for later.... My legs were tired and I was all sweaty. And I really, really wanted to quit at the 5 minute mark. And the 10 minute mark. And the 15 minute mark. But I got through it, with a fair bit of talking out loud to convince myself to keep going.... I'm sure I have a reputation at the gym as a total lunatic. *shrugs*

Funny, after my workout, my back felt the best it's felt all week. I was red-faced, sweaty and exhausted (and probably smelt bad), but there was no aching in my back. Woohoo!

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When I got home, I commented that when I stepped off the treadmill, my legs were giving off so much heat it was scary. And The Baby came out with, "Mum, you could have smelted ore on your legs".